Researchers at the Raman Research Institute (RRI) have built a new device that reveals how thick everyday fluids like gels, shampoos, and industrial solutions behave deep inside, a breakthrough that can help improve extraction and production processes across industries.
By showing how these fluids respond to even a single moving object, the method gives companies a clearer way to design materials that flow better, waste less energy and perform more predictably.
Why this breakthrough matters?
This, the team explained, matters because many real-world products and industrial chemicals, from oil-recovery fluids to cosmetic gels, belong to a group known as non-Newtonian fluids and unlike water or cooking oil, these materials do not let objects glide smoothly through them. Their internal structure keeps re-arranging in response to movement. This hidden push-and-pull affects how oil is pumped from underground wells, how a shampoo spreads in hand, and how gels feel and settle on the skin. Until now, scientists did not have a reliable way to watch these changes unfold as they happened.
The new device changes that. Researchers built a customised set-up inside a rheometer, a common machine used to study how materials flow, by holding the fluid between two cylinders and moving a needle-like probe through it. This allowed them to measure the exact forces the fluid exerted on the probe while simultaneously watching the microscopic changes in real time using in-situ optical imaging.
